1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for measuring information about a magnetocardiogram (MCG) in order to measure a weak magnetic field generated from a heart of a small animal such as a laboratory rat.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In general, a superconducting quantum interface device (SQUID) is a device using a magnetic flux quantization and Josephson-effect in superconductors, and is used as a highly sensitive sensor having quantum-mechanical measurement sensitivity. A magnetometer using the SQUID is known to the most sensitivity among magnetic sensors developed by humans, and is usually used as a biomagnetic sensor for measuring a weak magnetic field generated from an animal's brain, heart, etc. In particular, in order to prevent sudden death, magnetocardiogram (MCG) devices for measuring the heart-signal of the human body are being developed using the SQUID sensor.
Such an MCG device is intended to obtain information on vector components of the electrical signals of the heart by arranging a plurality of SQUID sensors in the form of a grid and combining the measurement information according to spatial distributions of the SQUID sensors. Accordingly, there are disadvantages in which a large number of SQUID sensors are used and thus a peripheral device is complicated and as the number of SQUID sensors is increased, signal processing is very complicated.
Thus, there is a need to provide an inexpensive device capable of simply measuring an MCG of a small animal such as a laboratory rat.